Home video

After a long wait, we're finally starting to get in a new wave of first-generation Blu-ray players. CNET will be posting full reviews for both the Panasonic DMP-BD10 and the Philips BDP9000 shortly, but I've already taken some long looks at each in terms of picture quality, and they've got a lot to be worried about. Not because they look worse than HD DVD; in fact, the picture-quality gap is almost gone between the two formats. And not because they're bad players; both of them put out a pristine Blu-ray image that blows DVD out of … Read more

In a conference call this year with an exec at HDMI, we heard someone at the other end of the line describe HDMI 1.3, the new standard for the highest-quality digital A/V connection, as "the 1080p of 2007." In other words, he's hoping that HDMI 1.3 becomes the new buzzword in HDTV that everybody wants to know about, that high-end buyers will plunk down lots of cash to get, and that makes everything that came before it seem obsolete.

On Monday, I attended a 3-hour press event where HDMI Licensing LLC, the company behind … Read more

A few weeks ago, I noticed my local (Brooklyn, N.Y.) Blockbuster Video store was closing up shop. No big deal. These things happen all the time, especially with the sky-high rents charged for commercial real estate here in New York City. But when I saw that two other nearby Blockbusters were also shutting down, my interest was piqued. Some quick googling revealed that the closures weren't limited to Manhattan and Brooklyn: at least 16 stores in northern Michigan were also shuttered in recent months. And who knows how many were closing without the news hitting the local papers. … Read more

If you thought a 150-inch projection was over the top, try this life-size drive-in movie screen up for auction on eBay.

This is could be perfect if you're one of those boomers who's obsessed with reliving your teenage years--and if you have a spare $10,000 lying around (backseat not included). But unless you live in an airplane hangar, this isn't exactly a media-room item. According to Tech Digest, it measures a full 40 by 60 feet. One more thing: The winning bidder is responsible for dissembling and transporting the screen from the Big Pevely Flea Market … Read more

Even those with perfect eyesight would get ocular fatigue trying to watch the small screens on most media players for extended periods. And for those of us who are legally blind without corrective lenses, it's almost impossible.

In these cases, the "iProjector" from Ion Audio is designed to prevent early bifocals by taking the video from your iPod and projecting it onto a screen of up to 30 by 90 inches, all the while charging your player. It will also work with a computer, DVD player or game console.

Ion claims 800-by-600-pixel resolution, but it remains to … Read more

Wireless digital video connections are all the rage these days. Or at least saying you've made the appropriate chipset is. Companies keep putting out press releases promising that one day soon your television will be able to receive high-definition signals sans wires, but consumers have been, for the most part, left hanging.

Though many have claimed to be first, Texas-based WiQuest Communications says its WQST100/101 chipset is "currently shipping to customers." That still doesn't give us an actual date as to when these will be sold as adapters for TVs, game consoles or DVD players, … Read more

Remember Roxio? You most likely used its Easy CD Creator to burn CDs from your PC before iTunes came out. (Ah, the Napster days.) Well, Roxio makes a lot of other software, too, and now it seems to be getting into the Blu-ray/HD DVD wars.

Roxio released new software on Wednesday that will allow people to organize and burn movies to both DVD and Blu-ray recordable discs. The Roxio DVDit Pro HD is available at Roxio.com for about $500. It does DVD DLT and Blu-ray Disc CMF mastering with the ability to add CSS or AACS protection from … Read more

Not all gadgets are the technological equivalent of genetic mutations. Some hybrids actually make sense and don't even look like lab experiments gone awry.

On paper, at least, Hitachi's hybrid camcorder appears to be one of these exceptions. Gizmag says the video camera, which Hitachi calls the first DVD/HDD product of its kind, can easily burn videos directly onto a DVD inside the camcorder, bypassing the need for a computer altogether. It comes in 1.3- and 3.3-megapixel models, each with an 8GB hard drive that can store 110 minutes of video, at about $1,450 … Read more

Eighty percent of the world's DVD players come from China, so what happens when that country decides DVD is a dumb format? We're about to find out.

On Wednesday some 20 Chinese companies unveiled their "EVD" players, which aim to replace DVD with a format they say offers better picture & sound -- though not high def, more capacity and stronger copy protection (that's ironic). The firms behind EVD predict they will cease making DVD players for their home market by 2008 and start exporting EVD players around the world even sooner, in 2007.

If … Read more